Portsmouth's Fransoso eyes healthy senior season, pro career

At the age of 22, Mike Fransoso feels he has a huge part of his baseball career still ahead of him.

Mike Zhe

At the age of 22, Mike Fransoso feels he has a huge part of his baseball career still ahead of him.

That's one reason he was thinking long-term benefits over short-term ones when he opted to have a second hip surgery in August, one that wiped out his fall session at the University of Maine but also one he hopes will have him hit the ground running come February, and when his professional career presumably begins in June.

"It was probably one of the harder decisions I've ever had to make," said the senior shortstop from Portsmouth. "It's my last year. Some guys would like to sit out fall ball but I would have enjoyed it. ...; Being a senior, I wanted to be out on the diamond with the guys I've been playing with."

Fransoso, a three-sport star at Portsmouth High School, has answered potential critics at every level of baseball he's played at since then. As a junior at Maine, he batted .327 — second-best on the team — with a team-high five home runs and 19 stolen bases. He's batted .300 or better all three seasons there and been the defensive anchor at shortstop the last two.

"With Mike on the field, he makes other people better," said Maine coach Steve Trimper. "That's always a great trait."

Playing for the Chatham Anglers in the elite Cape Cod Baseball League this past summer, he hit .268 — third-best on the team, in a wooden-bat league where the team average was .228 — with 13 RBIs and a dozen stolen bases.

But the hip problem, first addressed in a surgery right before his sophomore season at Maine, wasn't going away. He played through it on the Cape, where it was painful during games and even more so after them.

"After the first (surgery), we decided — me, my dad and my coach — to stick to the rehab route and see if it would get better," said Fransoso. "It didn't."

That sent him back to the Nashville Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center, where surgery was performed by Dr. Thomas Byrd on Aug. 15, once his Cape season was concluded.

"He was concerned about what scouts might think," said Trimper. "But I think enough people have seen him and know what he's about."

"I'm about 85 percent right now," Fransoso said last week. "I started swinging a few weeks ago and I've been running."

Fransoso is hoping to be the first player from the Seacoast to begin a career in affiliated baseball since Chris Anderson of Portsmouth, who pitched in the Minnesota Twins' organization in 2008 and '09. The MLB First-Year Player Draft is June 6-8 and this is the last time Fransoso will be eligible.

"He's going to get drafted," said Trimper. "He didn't want to be banged-up going into pro ball."

But before that, he'd love to go out with a monster senior year at Maine. He helped the Black Bears win the America East title and play in the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional as a sophomore, and last year they reached the league championship series, falling to Stony Brook.

Their fortunes for the 2013 season, which begins with a four-game series at Auburn in mid-February, are tied to a healthy Fransoso — voted a captain for the second straight year — leading the way.

"Hopefully, we've finally been able to wrestle him down and get him fixed," said Trimper. "You've heard the expression: 'Some people make coffee nervous.' Mike's that guy."

Mike Zhe is a Herald staff writer. He can be reached at mzhe@seacoastonline.com.

Advertise

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
seacoastonline.com ~ 111 New Hampshire Ave., Portsmouth, NH 03801 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service